


Maker

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-04-12 00:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Threepio's processor has an error. Luke and Artoo have to figure out why.





	Maker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Penknife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/gifts).



The day after everything changed, after everything ended, after all Luke's griefs were set to rest, Artoo woke him with a rolling bump and a whistle. Luke climbed out of his dreams slowly, like a hard ascent from the bottom of a trap dune, slipping back under over and over.

The whistling grew louder. Luke woke completely, then sat up. He blinked in muddled confusion, his memory unclear what the rough wooden floor meant, or the fragrant dried sticks and fronds that made up the sides and roof of the small hut. Other forms, most human though not all, slept in huddled piles around him. He'd been given the furs of some unknowable beast as a mattress, and felt the pattern imprinted in his cheek as he rubbed his face. He needed a shave, or he'd be as furry as Chewbacca, or....

Events righted themselves inside his head. Their hosts had provided sleeping quarters for the tired and the hungover after the celebration last night. The absence of particular twos and threes of his friends suggested some had taken the opportunity to celebrate privately elsewhere.

Artoo whistled impatiently.

"Hey, Artoo, sorry," Luke said in as quiet a voice as he could. "Did you need something?"

Artoo told him, in an equally quiet voice, that something was wrong with Threepio, and he needed to come now.

Luke blinked the last of the sleep from his eyes. "All right. Where did he get to this time?"

Artoo led him out, bumping unhappily along the uneven planks that made up the platforms surrounding the ancient trees, connecting them to one another's bulky trunks. "No," Luke agreed, as Artoo hit a particularly difficult transition, "I don't think the Ewoks had droids in mind when they built this place."

Artoo beeped something rude in reply. He still hadn't forgiven their new allies for how he was treated when they were first captured.

They found Threepio in another hut, a larger one filled with sleeping Ewoks. He sat in his rough throne, the same their hosts had built for him when they'd arrived, his eye lights dimmed, and emitting a disturbing humming noise unlike anything Luke had ever heard before. Artoo rolled over to him, past small, furry, snoring lumps, and gave a sad beep.

Luke bent in close to Threepio, and examined his outer casing. He didn't appear to be damaged, but if he'd been shot during the fight at the shield generator, he might not show any carbon scoring.

"How long has he been like this?"

With worried beeps and whistles, Artoo told Luke Threepio had started making this same strange noise in the early hours of the morning, and had been unresponsive since.

"You didn't see anything happen?"

No, a number of reports had been filed, and Threepio had been tasked with recording them. He'd stopped functioning shortly after. Artoo was as baffled as Luke.

Luke glanced at the sleeping Ewoks around them, sighed, and with a careful click, removed Threepio's head from his body. In his neck, Luke could access the interior panels. He didn't see any telltale circuits flipped or scorched. He patted his pockets in forlorn hope, and found a tiny 'driver stuffed deep inside one pocket. With a little work, he had the neck connector open and could access Threepio's activator directly. He rebooted the system, then held his friend's head to face him.

Threepio went through a quick boot, his language centers resetting with a slurred start. "Hello, Master Luke," he said. "Apologies, but I seem to be without my body."

Artoo beeped at him.

"Shut off? I never!"

"You did," Luke said, examining the head from various angles. "What I'd like to know is why. Artoo says you were receiving reports when you errored out. What was the last report you received?"

There was no way the droid's face could look thoughtful, but Luke read the emotion regardless. "I was recording salvage reports. Commander Antilles said," here his voice changed to Wedge's familiar voice, " _Materials appear to be sufficient to restock our supplies. We will be sending out additional salvage teams in the morning to retrieve as much as we can before the orbits decay._ "

"That was all?"

"Lieutenant Crandor said," again the change, " _We should be careful. When we tried salvage after the first Death Star, Vader picked off our ships in his TIE._ Commander Antilles said, _Not a problem. Vader's dead. Luke told me he saw to it himself._ "

Luke let the stab of pain move through him. It was going to be like Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru all over again. For years, he'd see something or hear something that reminded him of the people who'd loved him and raised him, and he'd remember the burning homestead, and the pain would come back. He'd lost his father only a day ago, and Wedge had misunderstood Luke's own terse report of what had happened. He would have to get used to the recurring sorrow.

"What was the next report?"

"I don't know. I have no memory file after that." Threepio's head looked pensive. "I do hope I'm not suffering from some malfuncti..." His voice slurred and wound down in the middle of the word. 

Artoo moaned a soft inquiry at Luke as Luke reached in to reboot Threepio again.

"Yes, Vader's dead."

He was treated to a series of beeps that took him a moment to mentally translate. "A maker chip? I haven't seen one of those in forever." Luke opened a back panel on Threepio's head to get a different view of his brain. Maker's chips were unheard of in droids built in mass-production factories, where the maker was another droid overseeing hundreds of droids per day being created on an assembly line. The practice was common back home on Tatooine, though, and sure enough, once he knew what to look for, he found a tiny, homemade chip in-line with Threepio's main power circuit. Removing it wasn't difficult. Luke popped the chip free, and set it aside before reconnecting the power.

"Thanks, Artoo. I wouldn't have looked for that," he said, reassembling Threepio. "I haven't seen one of those since I left Tatooine." The chips were a failsafe device, a means of deactivating a droid if it fell into someone else's possession. Builders, tinkering with droids in their home shops, stuck the maker's chips in as an identifier in case of theft. Some added code phrases to trip it, or put in a subroutine to shut down their droids upon the event of their deaths. The chips were often connected to their restraining bolts. Remove the bolt, and the chip inside would effectively kill the droid. Luke hadn't put much thought into either practice when he'd been a child. Now both seemed cruel and unnecessary to him. These two droids didn't follow him around because they were compelled by their own wiring. They were his friends.

He pressed the reboot switch, then put Threepio's head back on his shoulders.

Moments later, his friend's eyes lit up again. "I'm terribly sorry, Master Luke. I don't know what came over me."

Artoo told him about the chip. Luke picked it up and showed him. "I guess it must have tripped for some reason." That didn't make sense. "Threepio, you came to Tatooine. You weren't built there."

There was another beep, which managed to carry both guilt and sorrow. Luke glanced at the stirring Ewoks around them. "Come on. We should take this outside." Threepo's arms and legs were back under his control. He followed them out into the early morning air. Other Rebels were sleeping, or were busy with their own tasks, personal or otherwise. "Artoo, you said Threepio was built on Tatooine. That doesn't make sense. You're both from Alderaan."

"That's correct," Threepio said. "We were under he command of Captain Antilles before we came into your service. Before that, we performed various services for Senator Organa, Princess Leia's father."

"And before that?"

"I'm afraid I don't recall."

Luke almost made a joke, but Artoo turned his dome to him, and said that before they belonged to Senator Organa, they were in the service of Anakin Skywalker and his wife.

"Don't be ridiculous," Threepio told him irritably, as warm shock sizzled through Luke's limbs. Artoo beeped back that he wasn't being ridiculous, that he had been given to Anakin as a gift from his wife, and Anakin had given Threepio to her as a wedding present. He had built Threepio for his mother originally, but she had passed away.

"Now you're inventing stories," said Threepio. "Don't tell Master Luke such nonsense."

The little griefs came back. "He built you." Another pain, one so old Luke had almost forgotten it, came after. "For Grandmother Shmi." He'd visited the graves of his grandparents many times as a child, even played beside them. Uncle Owen thought it was disrespectful, but Aunt Beru had overridden him, because Grandmother would have loved to see Luke at play.

Anakin put a maker's circuit into a droid he built, because that's what everyone he knew would have done. Droids shut down or went mad at the deaths of their makers.

"He built you, and the circuit tripped when you found out he'd died." Artoo beeped in agreement, and again there was the sorrow. Luke turned to him. "You knew." A pit opened in his stomach. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"

"Told you what, Master Luke? Artoo, tell him." He smacked his counterpart on the dome.

Artoo told them after everything that had happened, Senator Organa had tasked his primary function to be the protection of Leia and her brother. Threepio's memory had been wiped, although he would still maintain records of the previous data. Enough must have been present in his main processor to trip his circuit when he discovered the death of his maker.

Threepio said, "I don't know why you expect anyone to believe this outlandish story. Even if Anakin Skywalker were my Maker, he died when Master Luke was a baby."

"From a certain point of view, he did," Luke said, remembering Obi-Wan's words. And perhaps that was the truth as Threepio needed to understand it. Luke had gone through his own brain meltdown when he'd found out about his progenitor. Threepio wasn't so different, and like Leia, he would need some time to adjust.

He wasn't sure if thinking about her woke her, or if it was coincidence when he saw her emerge from another treetop hut, and immediately turn to face where they stood. "Good morning," Leia said, and squeezed his arm. "You're up early."

"Threepio was having an issue." He still had the chip. He took her hand and placed it into her palm. "He's our brother. Want to get some breakfast? Artoo is going to tell us everything he remembers about our mother."

"He is?" She stared at the little droid, sleep still obviously clinging to her eyes. He could feel her wonder if she was still dreaming.

"He is." Luke grinned at his confused sister, and even more confused droid. "Let's go talk."


End file.
